State, commerce and commons: conservation with communities in upper tributary watersheds Prepared for panel on community-based conservation in a multi-level world at IASCP 2006, Bali, Indonesia (and potentially a review article in a special issue of the International Journal of the Commons 2008 No. 1 http://www.svt.ntnu.no/thecommonsjournal/) By Louis Lebel, Rajesh Daniel and Nathan Badenoch Unit for Social and Environmental Research, Chiang Mai University, Thailand. Citation: Lebel L., Daniel N.R., Badenoch N. 2006. State, commerce and commons: conservation with communities in upper tributary watersheds. USER Working Paper WP-2006-02. Unit for Social and Environmental Research, Chiang Mai University: Chiang Mai. Table of Contents Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................1 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................1 2 Conservation with communities...................................................................................... 4 2.1 Zonation.................................................................................................................................................5 2.2 Benign land-use systems ....................................................................................................................... 7 2.3 Forestry.................................................................................................................................................. 7 2.4 Crop substitution...................................................................................................................................8 2.5 Watershed and river basin management organizations .......................................................................9 2.6 Marketing non-timber forest products .................................................................................................9 2.7 Eco-tourism and alternative livelihoods ............................................................................................. 10 2.8 For pleasure and culture...................................................................................................................... 10 3 Heterogeneity ................................................................................................................10 3.1 Conserving what? .................................................................................................................................11 3.2 By and for whom?................................................................................................................................12 4 Scales.............................................................................................................................14 4.1 Challenges from below ........................................................................................................................ 15 4.2 Challenges from above......................................................................................................................... 15 4.3 Surprises in between ........................................................................................................................... 16 5 Uncertainties ................................................................................................................. 17 5.1 Livelihood insecurity ........................................................................................................................... 17 5.2 Incomplete decentralization................................................................................................................ 18 5.3 Information deficits............................................................................................................................. 18 6 Conclusion.....................................................................................................................19 Literature Cited.................................................................................................................... 20 1 Introduction Most of the remaining native forest cover in Southeast Asia is in the mountains. Low-lying areas have already been cleared for agriculture and cities. Most of the options for meeting forest cover targets at larger provincial or national scales are therefore dependent on maintaining and even expanding forest cover in upper tributary watersheds. Much biodiversity, because of loss and fragmentation of native vegetation, over-hunting and logging is no longer realistically available for “sustainable use” types of management. If it is to be conserved then it needs to be protected. In other cases some conservation with use is still a plausible option. Efforts to maintain water quality for downstream uses may also depend on vegetation and land-use upstream. With little left to 1 preserve in low-lying areas biodiversity conservation objectives are usually focused on public lands in upland, mountainous, areas. Mountain forests, soils, springs and streams, however, are also important to the farmers who live there. Their livelihoods and land-use systems depend on access to mature and secondary forests as well as fields. Many of the resources they use are common pool (except for paddy rice fields that are usually treated as private property), from various non-timber forest products, through to fish in the streams, and even insects and amphibians in small areas of rice paddy some communities are lucky to have. Paddy rice fields are usually treated as private property. A common discourse is that conservation of forests, biodiversity and watershed functions should primarily be achieved through protected area systems run by skilled agencies of the state on behalf of the wider public --what we have called a states knows best perspective (Lebel et al. 2004). In this view from above, common property de facto managed by communities needs to come under effective control of public agencies. This view is promulgated by state agencies with natural resource management mandates and many conservation organizations. The main alternative discourse is that these objectives should be achieved through the empowerment of knowledgeable local stewards who manage landscapes for multiple purposes to meet their own development objectives but in doing so also contribute to broader public goals for conservation – a locals know best perspective (Lebel et al. 2004). In this view from below common property systems already established by local communities need to be formally recognized and supported, and other new ones need to be encouraged. This view is promoted largely by grass-root actors and their supporters mostly from non-governmental organizations or academia. Still others argue that markets and guided private sector investments are central to sustainable use and conservation – a markets know best perspective (Lebel et al. 2004). In this view from the side it is the private-ness of property rights, or level of clarity, security and exclusivity that is most important. In addition it is argued that, often, these should be invested in firms although they may sometimes also reside with communities or the state. In practice communities, state agencies and firms interact in complex ways to shape landscapes and their conservation functions. The contribution and merits of each perspective to conservation are arguable, but far from convincingly demonstrated. There are several reasons. First, upper tributary watersheds provide a diverse range of goods and services to their inhabitants, others further downstream, and to society at broader spatial and multiple temporal scales (Figure 1). Ignoring scale in policy has undermined the effectiveness of ecosystem management interventions at local and broader levels. Figure 1. Upper tributary watersheds provide a portfolio of goods and services used and managed by diverse interests at multiple spatial levels. 2 Second, the allocation of rights to these goods and services by central authorities has often ignored the livelihoods, needs and rights of ethnic minority communities and other disadvantaged group in the pursuit of both conservation and development objectives. Ignoring institutional and cultural diversity has undermined social justice, reproducing discriminatory practices and resource conflicts. Third, a biophysical context of intense rainfall events, complex topography, and poor soils in mountain regions, combined with economic and political uncertainties with respect to markets and rights of access, amplifies management mistakes. A poor grasp of uncertainties in setting development and conservation objectives and management plans undermines both social and ecological resilience. Scale, heterogeneity and uncertainty together represent significant challenges and opportunities for meaningful community involvement in conservation. Such involvement is sorely needed because management by state agencies alone has again and again been plagued by governance failures, in particular, corruption, lack of transparency and poor accountability. Authorities in remote and insecure areas where conservation increasingly takes place have distorted the potential benefits from investments, markets and political reforms for development in these same areas. Bad governance has allowed narrow, powerful, interests to determine land- and water-uses while taking away access to those in the most need for direct use and with